


held close

by ballerinaroy



Series: romione drabbles [20]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Drabble, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-21
Updated: 2020-10-27
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:35:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,995
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27136720
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ballerinaroy/pseuds/ballerinaroy
Summary: Hermione waits for Ron to return from a mission so she can share some very important news.
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Ron Weasley
Series: romione drabbles [20]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1870747
Comments: 16
Kudos: 58





	1. Chapter 1

She’d had it all planned out in her mind. A cake with a special message on top, vanilla with chocolate frosting, and in the neat baker’s scroll _Happy Birthday Daddy._ Only, instead of a post-birthday celebration with just the two of them, Ron had come home from work that evening with a grim look on his face. One she’d become all too familiar with in their three years of marriage.

“I’m sorry,” he’d said, distraught, not even having to name.

“How long?” she managed, gripping his arm though they were not yet entangled.

“A month, six weeks at most.”

And although it had pained her, although she was bursting to tell him, to share the life growing inside of her, she had closed her lips, and pressed her face to his chest and made him _swear_ he’d come home.

The cake had been delicious even if the baby wasn’t as fond as sweets as their father (it hadn’t tasted quite as good coming up as going down) and Hermione held the secret close. For it was Ron, who had had an equal part in conception, who deserved to know first. To share the private joy with her, the thrill of a life-changing secret. She counted down the days as the first month passed then the second, holding onto every letter he penned and that was passed to her in secret. As the first trimester disappeared she held onto the secret.

A baby, their baby. Who would grow up loved and cherished. One that would feel real as soon as their father knew of the baby’s existence.

“How much longer?” she asked Harry in a moment of weakness.

He’d taken to looking in on her, stopping by to beg her round for dinner or to putter around her home as though he didn’t have a toddler and pregnant wife of his own.

“Hermione I-“ he stared, staring at her hopelessly.

She felt the tears well up in her eyes. Everything made her emotional now. Songs and sights that would only ever make her smile before was now a cue for waterworks.

“Soon,” Harry pleaded. “He’s coming as soon as he can.”

Three months. Ninety-seven days without him. The longest they’d been apart since she’d left for Hogwarts—no before that even for during her seventh year there’d been Hogsmeade weekends and quidditch matches and desperate midnight rendezvous in the room of requirement— the longest since they’d met.

_Come home_. She scratched into parchment a dozen times and tossed the letter into the fire. She knew he had to. Wouldn’t be gone so long if he didn’t have to. He wouldn’t leave her if he didn’t have to.

She wrote it out a dozen times. Knowing that telling him would summon him back and make this nightmare end. She missed him so fiercely that every night she fantasied about what he might have done if she’d let it slip. If her perfect plan to tell him might have not involved his birthday or a cake but instead, a blurt in the middle of the night or a handwritten card.

That night she fell asleep on the sofa, wrapped in one of his sweaters, a half-finished letter on her lap that she’d never send for she loved him too much to make him question his career. In her dream, he came to her. That crooked grin she loved, those bright blue eyes. A noise started her awake and in the confusion of waking in a place she never fell asleep, she was convinced a moment that he was indeed a fantasy.

Those same blue eyes, his cheeks covered in a beard thicker than she’d ever seen. His hair long and shaggy.

“Ron,” she whispered, holding onto the fantasy for a moment longer.

But the hands that pulled her forward so he might press his face to her abdomen felt real and she was completely stunned to realize that she wasn’t still dreaming.

“Hermione,” he whispered back, voice aching with emotion.

She kissed the top of his head, noticing a letter crumpled in his left fist.

“You read my letter?” she asked, feeling a little cheated.

“It was addressed to me,” he answered cheekily in that tone that she loved and when he peaked up at her there were tears in his eyes. “Is it true? Are you-?”

“Yes.” And at last her heart filled with glee, terror, all of those emotions she’d kept at bay unlocked with only one sight of him. “We’re having a baby.”

“Oh Hermione,” he said, kissing her cheeks, her eyelids, every place he could reach as the texture of his beard tickled her skin. “Oh, Hermione.”

“Welcome home,” she replied, capturing his lips with hers at last. “Welcome home.”


	2. Chapter 2

His mind had been buzzing ever since he’d read the news. A baby. His baby, theirs. He’d come home thinking he’d sleep for days and the news had rejuvenated him as equally as it had instilled terror in his heart.

It wasn’t as though the baby was a surprise, they’d stopped trying to prevent this from happening well over a year ago when James had been born. But it had fallen to the back of his mind. He felt so behind, all those months spent trying to conceive and he’d never really thought about what it meant to have conceived.

Would he even make a good dad?

Ron frowned, looking over at his sleeping wife. He knew she’d make a good mother. Had seen how she was raised. With all the books and foreign trips, a child could desire. At least he’d manage that for their kid. Enough money and a good mother. But, would he compliment her?

Worried now he might wake her—and his stomach waking up quickly with a series of rubles—he slid as carefully as he could from the bed, tucking the sheets and blankets back around Hermione and dressing as fast as he could in the chilly flat.

Once the fire was made he set about solving the next problem. His anxieties and insecurities always seemed much more manageable on a full stomach. A lesson he’d learned well during the darkest times of his life. Yet no matter how hard he tried to keep the nasty thoughts at bay as he set the frying pan on the stove and chopped up the onions and tomatoes, they kept creeping in.

Would their baby feel this way? Would he pass on the worst of him? All the insecurities and doubt? As an adult, he knew his parents loved him, could look back, and identify all the ways they showed they cared but, what if their kid doubted the way he had? What if they didn’t reconcile their doubts in adulthood? What if…

He heard her walking in and he turned, smiling at her as his eyes traced over her. She was wearing an old sweater of his, the bump barely visible beneath it. Or maybe it was just his wishful thinking.

“Good morning,” he whispered. “Did I wake you?”

Hermione shook her head, coming up behind him and resting her forehead between his shoulder blades and tucking her hands between them.

“I was cold,” she told him in the same morning whisper. “Couldn’t fall back asleep.”

“I’ve got breakfast,” he told her, nodding over to the table. “Go warm yourself up and I’ll bring it to you.”

“Our baby’s going to love you so much,” she told him feeling her lips press against his back. “Not as much as me though, you remember that.”

He grinned, eased by her without even having to speak it. “I’ll try.”

She poured herself a cup of tea before settling in next to the fireplace.

“Mmh, a full English breakfast?” she asked as he brought over her plate and went back for his. “I thought I would be the only one with early cravings.”

“Food on the mission was shit,” he answered. “Mum’ll freak out when she sees me.”

“Might just have to keep you here for a week, fatten you up myself,” Hermione teased.

“With your cooking?” he teased back and she made a face at him.

“I know how to order in,” she said, shaking her head at him. Hermione’s smile thinned. “I haven’t told them.”

“What?” he asked, mouth full.

“About the baby,” she answered, smoothing her shirt as she spoke. “I wanted you to be the first to know.”

“Really?” he said stupidly. “So all this time you just…kept it to yourself?”

“It didn’t feel real until you were here,” she told him and his heart filled again. “And I just…I couldn’t imagine the future…our future until you were here to live it with me.”

“Hey,” he said, reaching over and putting his hand over hers. “Hey, I’m here.”

“I know,” she mumbled, “I was just so worried that our baby wouldn’t get to meet you and you’re going to be such an amazing dad and…”

“You really think so?” he couldn’t help asking although she was so emotional. “You really think I’m going to be a good dad.”

It worked anyway, distracting her. “You’re already everyone's favorite uncle,” she pointed out. “You’re going to be the best dad, Ron.” She looked down pointedly at her meal. “You already are.”


	3. Chapter 3

For a whole weekend, and a long one at that, she got him all to herself. Seventy-eight-point-five glorious hours spent with just the two of them (three of them her mind whispered). But he’d never just been hers. Harry, who of course knew of his return, arrived for breakfast that Monday morning, and by noon they’d been summoned to the Burrow at their earliest convince. Not that Hermione minded. She’d taken to avoiding large gatherings as she swelled and stretched with their little secret.

“No one,” Ron said in disbelief at least a dozen times. “You didn’t tell anyone? Not even Ginny?”

“Ginny has enough on her mind,” Hermione told him. “She’s due any day now.”

“Right, but, what if something had happened?” he asked, putting his hand over her belly protectively. “And no one had known?”

The thought had occurred to her, of course. Ron had been always better at looking after her than she ever was on her own. What if she’d collapsed, or been exposed to something at work and no one would have known to even protect the life growing inside her.

“Well,” she said, trying to push the horrible scenario from her mind. “No one did.”

And then, she told him something she’d been keeping from herself. “It’s strange, I’ve known all this time but until you got back until you knew, it didn’t really feel real.”

“How do you mean?”

“I mean,” she sighed, looking into his eyes. “I knew I was growing a life but until I told you it felt like this passive thing. Not our child, not a life.”

“You’re barmy,” Ron said fondly, kissing her forehead and then bending down to kiss her belly.

“Any thoughts on when or how we should tell people?” she asked him.

“We should do it soon,” Ron said logically. “Ginny really could burst any day and we don’t want to steal their thunder.”

“We should tell them first, right?” she asked of him and he nodded in agreement. “And then our parents.”

“I doubt it’ll be just us at the Burrow this weekend, maybe go over for tea next week?” Ron said, “Take your parents out to dinner.”

“To that little Italian place?” she asked knowingly and Ron groaned appreciatively.

“Oh, Hermione,” He said, “Have I told you you’re brilliant lately?”

She giggled, kissing him again. Glad for every second they had alone, every excuse to put her lips on his.

“He’s down,” Ginny announced, coming back into the room having gone to lay James down for his afternoon nap. “I thought he’d never go to sleep.”

“You can never leave again, mate,” Harry told Ron, “James asked about you four times a day.”

“What can I say, being the favorite Uncle has its perks,” Ron said, winking at Hermione as they all shared a laugh.

“How are you, Ginny?” Hermione asked.

“Miserable,” she said honestly, pulling a face. Hermione watched as Harry drew her feet into his lap and began massaging them. “This last month is the worst of it. I’m huge, can’t sleep, can’t even get comfortable.”

Ron and Hermione shared a sympathetic look.

“Don’t let me put you off though,” Ginny said hurriedly. “It’ll all be worth it when I get to hold our little one. So whenever you want to give our kids another nephew-“

“I don’t know,” Ron said mischievously. “How are you two going to handle Godparent responsibilities on top of all this?”

“Oh, we’ll have a year on you,” Ginny said.

“Unless,” Harry interrupted, staring at them intensely. “You’re not-“

Hermione looked over at Ron who smiled at her proudly, taking her hand and together they nodded at their best friends.

“Ron, you just got back!” Ginny cried out as Harry bound to his feet, launching himself at them.

His arms still around them he pulled back and stared, “Wait, Ginny’s right, how do you-?”

“I’d just found out before Ron left,” Hermione explained with a chuckle. Harry embraced them again, tightly.

“I don’t know how you managed to keep that from us,” Ginny said, sounding disappointed. “I was shouting it from the rooftops as soon as I found out.”

“Oh, we remember,” Ron said.

“Shut it,” Ginny said, “And get over here, I’m not as nimble as my husband.”

Hermione laughed, sitting down next to Ginny so they could embrace.

“Ooh,” Ginny cooed, waiting for a nod from Hermione before placing her hand on her belly, the other on her own. “They’ll start Hogwarts together.” They looked over at Harry, his arm still around Ron and he had tears in his eyes.

“They’ll start Hogwarts together,” Harry echoed.

“Oh, don’t the two of you start,” Hermione said, batting at her own eyes. “When I start crying I can’t stop.”

“Sorry,” Harry said affectionally. “Our kids are going to grow up together.”

Hermione looked over at Ron but he wasn’t immune to the emotional realization. “Yeah,” he echoed. “They are.”

“You know, once you two start a family you’re not going to be able to go on those missions.”

They’d only just taken off their cloaks as they arrived for afternoon tea, Molly commenting immediately about Ron’s weight and the danger of his career.

“It’s only going to get worse,” Hermione reminded him in a low voice. “She’s doubled down on Harry ever since James was born.”

Ron sighed, “You’d think mum was proud of me or something.”

“You know that I’m proud of you!” she said loudly, coming back into the sitting room with a fresh pot of tea. “Don’t you say that, I just don’t want you to miss your kids growing up! We don’t get very long with them. Before I knew it you were eleven and-“

She broke off, tears in her eyes.

“I know mum,” Ron said, conjuring a handkerchief for her, a trick he’d gotten rather good at as of late. “I was only joking.”

“Well, I’m not,” she said, waving his offering away. “You think the years go quickly now, just you wait. Watching your kids grow up, goodness, you blink and they’ve gone from nappies to walking down the aisle.”

Before they could think of a reply they were thankfully interrupted with the arrival of Arthur.

“Sorry I’m late!” he called, walking in hurriedly. “Perkins stopped by and I lost track of time. Oh no, is everything alright dear?”

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” Molly said, waving him away. “Have a seat and I’ll fix you something.”

“I’m alright,” he told her, embracing his son and then Hermione. “And how are you two? You’re looking better Ron, you gave us quite a fright on Sunday.”

“Don’t worry, we’ve already finished most of what mum sent home,” Ron assured them, though Hermione knew he didn’t mind being fussed over so long as his brothers weren’t around to tease him. “And we’re going to bed. It was just a stressful time.”

“Well, I’ve made you another basket to take, and I don’t want to hear about it being trouble because it wasn’t.”

“Thanks, mum,” Ron said.

“I’m glad the two of you could stop by,” Molly went on. “It feels like we haven’t seen much of you at all Hermione.”

“Yes, well, I’ve been rather busy with work…” she said and trailed off, looking at Ron for approval. He shrugged and then nodded. “And I’ve, uh, been waiting for Ron to get back to share something with you.”

“Are you?” Molly asked, knowing at once. She gripped her husband’s arm. “Arthur are they?”

“We’re going to have a baby,” Ron confirmed and true to her nature, his mother burst into tears.

“Oh, Arthur,” she cried, “Oh-“

She stood, teary-eyed and beckoned them over, giving Hermione a tight hug and then embracing Ron as she sobbed.

“Why didn’t you say anything?” Molly demanded, going back in to hug Hermione again. “You know if there’s anything you need.”

“I know,” Hermione assured her, unable to keep herself from tearing up at the joy on her in-law’s faces. Arthur, whom she’d never seen get emotional until after Fred’s death, was gripping Ron tightly and whispering something in his ear. “I just needed Ron back.”

“Ohh,” she cooed knowingly, patting the side of Hermione’s face in a maternal way. “All healthy then?”

“Yes,” Hermione replied, smoothing her shirt. “Fourteen weeks along, progressing normally.”

“That far?” Molly asked. “You’re almost halfway done.” She turned again to her husband. “Oh, Arthur.”

“I know dear,” he said, taking his turn with Hermione and whispering a “Congratulations,” in her ear.

Another round of hugs ensued before they all sat back down, grinning at one another.

“So,” Molly said, “What are you going to do about a nursery?”


End file.
